The general concept for delivery of sound recordings or clips and visual recordings or clips by way of the cable configured or “wired” Internet is known and described in various U.S. patent applications. (See Bernard et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,213; Kaplan, U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,916; Barbara, U.S. Pat. No. 5,926,789; and Doerr et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,949,41.) Such methods are typically used to sell products to consumers. For example, a web page from Amazon.com allows a user to listen to samples of music for before purchasing compact discs (CD's) by mail. However, all of these methods are dependent upon a wired or cable connection.
Also, cell phones may be programmed by a user or manufactured to ring with a electronic facsimile of a real tune of a song or musical composition, commonly called “ringtones” and have become increasingly popular. Such electronic reproductions are known as monophonic and polyphonic tunes. Cellular phones initially on the market could only play music or to deliver “ring tones” with such electronic monophonic or polyphonic chime or ring tone rather than an actual recorded song, human voice, or musical composition. As electronic reproductions, such tones are devoid of harmony, human voice and chorus. Additionally, these ring tones must be factory installed in the telephone or the delivery methods just directly interface with the Internet and require the consumer to be on line to access and download a particular mechanical or electronically approximated ring tone.
More recently, various methods have been developed and are being used to enable a phone user to make more effective use of the variety of telephone service now available. For example, “caller ID” function is one such feature which allows the recipient of an incoming call to identify the caller based on textual information provided on a telephone display panel. A patent to Borland, U.S. Pat. No. 6,178,230 discloses an improved telephone system and method that determines the identity of the person being called for a telephone having more than one user and can identify the person being called by sounding a distinctive ring or “ringtone” associated with the person being called. A mechanical ring tone is played depending upon the caller ID signal received to alert the telephone user as to who is calling without reading the telephone's display panel.
As may be seen, however, there exists much room for improved methods of delivery and playback of sound and image files on electronic wireless and landline devices, and especially the delivery of original music recordings with real musical instrument sounds, human voice, chorus and harmony, as opposed to crude, electronic synthesized music, directly to cellular phones and the like. There also exists a need for the use of real music and the like in a variety of applications, such as ringtones. There further exists a need for the use of such improved methods of real sounds/music and image delivery video, business methodally delivery, etc., in conjunction with established marketing methods with demonstrated efficacy such as advertised telephone numbers (vanity phone numbers) and toll-free calling and the like.
Toll and toll-free telephone services for the purpose of commonly used methods by which a business/subscriber can advertise, receive and collect free calls from an interested customer or end user. By the end user or customer dialing, for instance, any number beginning with “800”, “886”, “887”, “700”, etc., or other varieties of a “toll-free” number, a call is typically routed to a regular phone number and the charge for the call is usually billed to the company or individual owner of the called number. In processing such calls a database or network operation is queried by a network switch to determine the actual destination number for the call, which is then employed by the switch to route the call through the network to an appropriate destination. Toll-free customer service lines have long been used, and toll-free calling is also known as a highly effective business tool. Such toll-free calling is also highly effective to develop market recognition and source identification, and in acquiring strong and valuable trade and service mark rights, for example, such as “1-800-BANKRUPT” which has been recognized as a property right to receive telephone calls dialed to the number 1-800-226-5787, which matches the letters in the word “bankrupt” on the users' phone keypad. Personal toll-free numbers have also been used as effective alternatives to calling cards and pay phones, or as alternatives to business cards, such as “1-800-LAWYERS”, or “1-800-BREAKING NEWS”, or “1-800-SPORTSLINE”, “1-800-AUCTION”, “1-800-REALTONES”, “1-800-MASTERTONES”, “1-800-REALMUSIC”, “1-800-ANIMATIONS”, “1-800-CUSTOMTONES”, “1-800-MYTONE”, “1-800-DOWNLOADMANAGER”, “1-800-DATEMATE”, “1-800-DATELINE”, and the like. These toll-free numbers are referred to as “vanity” numbers by the marketing industry. The toll-free vanity number marketing approach allows companies to market products in conjuction with an associated word in conjunction with a toll-free number and driving the targeted customer to call the more easily memorable vanity number.
As some examples of toll-free services, PowerNet Global currently offers a stand-alone toll-free card and service, AccuDial offers toll-free numbers for the home, office, business or overseas location that one can forward anytime via a website and Kall8 On-The-Fly Programmable toll-free service offers to route a custom 800 number to a business or residence and to change the number as desired by way of a secure website. Still other examples include Z-tel Bundled Unlimited and Cheap toll-free services, and toll-free services offered by Covista, Unitel and OPEX. In some recent developments, there have been some new techniques which provide cable-connected Internet subscribers with a way to offer toll-free access to end users. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,181,690. In another example, there is provided the ability of a caller in one country to dial a toll-free number associated with a destination in another country with the international toll charges assessed to the call origin and with the destination network charges assessed to the destination. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,875,237.
Such hugely popular and effective toll-free services in conjunction with the delivery of compressed real music recordings, voice content, video animations and other rich media over the air to electronic devices, such as mobile phones, has not yet been made available or even explored. The integration of toll-free calling capability in conjunction with such wireless and wireline delivery of data is also seen to provide a yet even more powerful marketing and sales approach than current protocols offered by Internet usage and toll-free uses separately.